In Memoriam: Looking back at the Spring 2006 anime season (part 2)

If you remember the Spring season of 2006 reasonably well, you may notice
a striking omission from the list of shows I'd looked at in part 1.
Namely, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya aired that season but I didn't
even mention it. How could I possibly write about the Spring 2006 season
and not cover Haruhi?

As it happens, I have a record of my initial reaction to Haruhi's
first (broadcast) episode, back in the spring of 2006:

gregory says "Have you watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?"
You say "I admire the high concept of starting off the first episode
as a crappy tragically bad student film. At the same time, it means
that the first episode is a crappy, stereotypically bad student film."
You say "So no, effectively not."
gregory laughs

As it went on, my friend Gregory Blake wound up loving Haruhi and he
did his best to try to get me to watch it. Unfortunately, if you know
Haruhi you know that it's very difficult to try to explain why it's so
worth watching without actually spoiling the surprise. While he was alive,
Gregory didn't spoil me and he failed to persuade me to power through that
first episode of a terrible student film to get to the meat of the show.

After his death, I wound up feeling that because he'd loved Haruhi so
much I should watch it basically in his memory. And once I was watching
it, well, I wound up really loving it; Haruhi somewhat retroactively
became one of the highlights of the Spring 2006 season for me. Call
it part of Gregory's legacy. Even today my memories of Haruhi are
inextricably tangled up in the circumstances under which I came to
watch it.

(So yeah, Gregory was totally right about it being something I'd
enjoy. And I'm even glad he didn't spoil me about it, because that
definitely was a good double-take.)

Thank you, Gregory Blake, for that careful, spoiler-free, heartfelt
advocacy for a show that you loved. In memoriam.